Black Despair
by TMara
Summary: Shortly before her wedding to Raoul, Christine is haunted by memories of her Angel. She realizes that there is some unfinished business between them and decides she has to see him one final time...
1. Night

So, in order to continue with my tradition to start a new story before the previous one is finished, here is the first chapter of "Black Despair". And, calm down, You Are Love, there won't be any Raoul-husband or - Heaven forbid! - Raoul-babies. I promise she won't go through with the wedding.

And now the bad news: There won't be an update for either story next week. Sorry, friends, but I will be away over the weekend and have a house guest coming immediately upon my return. So expect my next post in two weeks and try not to forget me till then... Maybe you can use that time to form a first opinion on this story and leave me a review. Oh, and the M-rating is not necessarily for overly sexy scenes, as it is, they are far from anything in that regard right now ;-)

Anyway, I still don't own anything or anybody.

Chapter 1 - Night

Christine woke up with a barely suppressed scream. She had had the same dream again, that terrible dream that had haunted her sleep ever since _that_ night. She sobbed into the pillows, trying not to wake anybody. It was bad enough that she could not find rest anymore, it would be too embarrassing to wake up Raoul's aunt. The old lady had been reluctant enough to take her in and act as her chaperone till the wedding, which would take place in about another week.

Christine sighed. Her situation was precarious enough even without that dream. It was only too obvious that Raoul's family did not really approve of her. In their eyes she was a theater girl of questionable reputation who had somehow tricked Raoul into proposing to her and their dear boy was now stuck with her. Up until _that_ night, though, the de Chagnys had at least been polite, though utterly cold. But now that tout Paris talked about her performance as Aminta, how she had abandoned herself to the seductive music and to – him, they blatantly ignored her and showed her their contempt in every possible way. Not in Raoul's presence, though, oh no. Whenever her fiancé was there, they kept up appearances, though Christine suspected, that behind her back, they tried to influence him, turn him against her, convince him that she was impure, and thus make him break up their engagement.

But somehow that threat to her future did not scare Christine nearly as much as that dream. What really caused her to toss in her bed most of the nights, unable to find sleep, was fear of having that dream again, of having to face the consequences of her actions again, of feeling _his_ eyes on her again, gazing into hers with that look of utter desperation and sadness, yet at the same time full of love.

Christine shook her head to clear her mind. She needed to calm down. She could not let a dream disturb her so, she needed her strength to deal with the numerous other problems in her life. But when she closed her eyes, the vision of her former tutor appeared again before her mind's eye, the way he had looked that last night: his hideous face bare, disheveled, his shirt open, his clothes wet from wading around in the subterranean lake, the madness that had possessed him earlier that night still lingering at the bottom of his eyes – those sad, sad eyes, that had looked at her with so much love, while his breaking voice had told her that he loved her. Still loved her, after all she had done to him, after the ultimate betrayal, when she had acted as bait on stage to draw him out, so that the gendarmes that Raoul had placed all over the Opéra Populaire could capture him – kill him. Even after she had exposed his deformed face to the audience, he still loved her.

"He is a criminal," Christine tried to shake that feeling of guilt that followed her ever since that night. "He deserved what he got." She winced. Deep down she knew that that was only partly true. Yes, he had done terrible things, he had killed Buquet and Piangi, had made the chandelier drop down on the audience and set the building on fire, and last, but not least, had threatened to kill her dear Raoul. But if she was honest, he had committed most of these crimes only when seriously provoked. The chandelier, for instance, had had to come down, in order to allow her Ang... – him – to escape during the ensuing chaos. It could be considered a – rather extreme, true, but still – act of self-defense. Piangi might have tried to stop him single-handedly and had thus met his demise. As for Raoul – well, that had been a fight between rivals, between two men competing for her affection. No, if she was honest, she could not put all the blame on her former tutor, part of all that had happened was her fault as well, another part was Raoul's fault, who had plotted to kill his adversary, and society as a whole was to blame for _his_ miserable life, for the pain he had suffered because of something that was not his fault at all, his hideous, disfigured face. For the rejection, pain and suffering that had shaped him and turned him into the mad, aggressive, angry criminal that she had so feared.

Christine's tears were now running freely, as she thought about how much her – Angel must have endured in his life. Not even his mother had been able to love him, he had said, she had forced him to wear a mask, to hide his deformed features, so that she would not have to face her son's physical flaw. Christine shivered as she realized that she had not treated him any better than his mother. She, too, had easily been convinced to think only the worst of him, because of that cursed face, that seemed to signal to everybody "he is a monster". Deep down, she knew that even though he could not expect her to return his feelings, after all he had done for her, he could have at least expected her loyalty, her trust, her friendship. After all, he had had no obligations towards her. When he found her crying in the chapel all those years ago, he could have just as well walked away and ignored her. But he had not. He had done the decent thing, he had stayed on and befriended her, comforted her. For ten years he had been her best friend, the most important person in her life. He had given her nothing but kindness, comfort, knowledge and music. He would have deserved some recognition of his friendship. But how had she repaid him for all those years of watching over her?

"By almost delivering him into the hands of the gendarmes," she sobbed. "And by exposing his face to the whole audience, thus hurting his pride. And then I had the gall to tell him that the true distortion was within his soul, when my own soul was so flawed and ungrateful!"

Christine thought back to all the many hours she had spent with her Angel over the years. How much she owed him! How much she had learned from him, not just about music and singing. He had been the major influence in her young life for such a long time, and then, suddenly, she had forgotten about the good that was undoubtedly in this man and had judged him based on his face, his temper and – Buquet. But had she ever asked him, what really had happened between him and the stagehand that night? No, she had judged him, labeled him a murderer and turned from him, without bothering to hear his side of the story.

"It might have been me," Christine realized. "It might have been my attitude, my lack of trust, what drove him over the edge!" And once again, she remembered him the way he had looked when she had last seen him, when she had returned the ring to him and thus had killed what little hope he had still harbored in his heart.

Those eyes! Christine shook violently. No, she would never be able to forget those incredibly sad eyes, that had adored her, even when she had virtually plunged a dagger into his heart.

"I hope he is fine," Christine thought. She knew that he had not been captured or killed, all of Paris was wondering how he could have possibly gotten away. Therefore, unless he had perished in the burning opera house, he must have been able to escape. At that thought Christine felt incredibly relieved. At least she did not have his blood on her hands. She had not killed him, even though she probably had destroyed him. But in all likelihood he was alive. He must be hiding somewhere.

Christine sighed. His eyes once again seemed to look at her. Those sad, sad eyes would follow her till the end of her days, she would never be able to forget that last look he had given her. "In his eyes all the sadness of the world," she whispered, tears running down her cheeks.

"Angel, forgive me," she sobbed. "Despite all your crimes, despite the fear you inspired in me by killing Buquet, you did not deserve this – this utter betrayal. I did not even have the decency to ask you, why... I did not give you a chance to defend yourself, I judged you without hearing you. Yes, it is true, you killed a fellow human being, and murder is a terrible crime, no matter what, but maybe there would have been attenuating circumstances, maybe I could at least have understood if not forgiven. But most certainly I should not have listened to Raoul, let him talk me into acting as bait during the performance of Don Juan. What if you had been caught that night? They would never have given you a fair trial, they would have hanged you, or..." She shuddered. "The guillotine..."

The thought of her Angel's ugly head severed from his shoulders by the falling blade made her shake and sob uncontrollably. Her imagination presented the scene of his execution to her inner eye: the crowd, all excited about the criminal's impending death, all anxious to see him suffer. Him, her Angel, filthy and weak from weeks of imprisonment, where he would have suffered countless indignities and humiliations at the hands of cruel guards, his face bare, so that all of Paris could see the monster's ugliness, but his hands tied behind his back, so that he could not cover his deformity. And her, in the middle of the cheering crowd, overcome by guilt, close to fainting at seeing him on display in such a cruel way, yet unable to turn away from the spectacle. And then... he would look up, his eyes searching the crowd, until they met hers. His eyes would caress her lovingly, and his lips would soundlessly form the words "Christine, I love you." And then... he would bow his head to the blade...

"No!" Christine once again barely suppressed a scream. No, that was just her imagination, she reminded herself. That had not really happened. "Not yet," she murmured. "At least not yet. But it could still happen, if they find him... As long as he stays in Paris, in France even, he will not be safe. And it will all be my fault. He had haunted the Opéra Populaire for years, extorted money from the previous manager, played his pranks on cast and crew, but nobody ever thought about hunting him down, until..." She hung her head. Until she had told Raoul about him, greatly exaggerating things in her panic after Buquet's death.

How could Raoul have believed all the crap she told him that night? That the Phantom would kill and kill again, kill even as many as a thousand men? Had he not realized that she was under the influence of a heavy shock, traumatized? That her words should be taken with a grain of salt? How could he not have noticed that what she was saying did not make any sense? For there had been rumors about the Phantom - for how many years? Probably more than she had known her Angel. Raoul must have heard those rumors, too, even though his family had only recently become patrons. How many violent deaths had been attributed to the Phantom in all these years? Right, none. So why would anybody expect him to suddenly turn into a merciless murderer, intent on slaying thousands?

Now that Christine could think about it rationally, she knew that he was not the bloodthirsty killer she had painted to Raoul that night, on the rooftop, when she had finally accepted her childhood friend's love. But why had Raoul not seen that? Why had he believed her every word?

"Because of those words, Raoul considered him a threat, a danger to me and everybody else at the Opéra," Christine thought. "Because of what I told him that night, he tried to hunt down and kill my Angel."

It was that simple. Her actions had put her former tutor at grave risk, her actions had led to the destruction of the Opéra and thus his home. Whatever happened to that man now, was all her fault. He had been there for her for years, had comforted her and nurtured her, had taught her so many things, had helped her develop her voice and made her a star. And what had she done in return? She had broken his heart, chased him from his home and made his life even more miserable than it had already been before.

Christine tossed nervously on her bed. "I need to put things right," she thought. "At least, as much as is humanly possible. I can never erase all the pain I caused him, but I must try to make amends. Somehow I must make sure he is alright. I owe him that much. He took care of me when I needed somebody, now it is my turn to help him. That man is my responsibility. It is my duty to repay him for his kindness towards me, when I was a lonely, fatherless orphan."

That was easier said than done, though. Christine realized that it would not be easy to carry out her plan. First of all, she did not know where to find her Angel. Was he even still in Paris? Maybe he had left town that very night and was long gone? But even if he was still in Paris, how could she go about searching for him? Raoul could not know what she was doing. He would not understand, he would downright forbid her to try and contact that – thing – as he used to refer to her Angel. But how could she keep something like that from her fiancé? Raoul paid her lengthy visits on a daily basis, and the rest of her time was occupied with preparations for their upcoming wedding. It would not go unnoticed, if she tried to make some time for herself, in order to plan her search for the man that had once been her Angel and then had been turned into a mad criminal through her fault.

Suddenly Christine had an idea. "Mme. Giry!" she thought. "If anybody here in Paris knows anything about his whereabouts, it's probably her!" She grinned. All it would take to start her search would be to contact Mme. Giry. Doing so would be comparatively easy. Christine had pushed for Meg to be her bridesmaid, and Raoul had grudgingly agreed. While he was not overly pleased with the idea of having a ballet girl as his future wife's bridesmaid, he felt he had to somehow honor the Giry-family to thank Mme. Giry for her help that night. So, all Christine needed to do was make a visit to the Giry-household, claiming to have some bridesmaid-details to discuss with Meg, and she would be able to ask the former ballet mistress if she knew where _he_ was at the moment. Mme. Giry would know, Christine was convinced of that, and she would tell her. Once she knew, she could plan how to contact him.

But what if... What if for some reason or other Mme. Giry did not know anything? Or what, if she did not want to tell her or had been forbidden to tell her? How should she find him then? Christine sighed. She had to admit to herself that she had not the slightest idea what to do if she could not get the desired information from Mme. Giry. She only knew that it was imperative that she find him and talk to him. It was the single most important thing she had to do, even more important than getting married to Raoul next week. She needed to see him, to make sure he was fine and held her no grudge. To implore and be granted his forgiveness.

"What if I cannot find him?" she sobbed, "or what if he does not forgive me? What if he is so hurt that it is impossible to put things right for him again?"

Christine shivered at the thought that it might be too late, that his heartache and the pain caused by her betrayal might have been too much for him to bear, that he might have done something drastic and very, very permanent. That she might never be able to see him again, talk to him and beg his forgiveness. That she might be responsible for his death after all.

"Holy Virgin, Queen of the Heavens," she prayed, "keep him save, protect him. I see my sin now, I know now how wrong I was. Please give me a chance to make amends, to at least try and heal the wound I caused him. I know I cannot do anything about the fact that he loves me, for it is impossible to force one's heart, but maybe we can remain friends, maybe I can make it so that he can remember me without bitterness. Maybe I can make him understand that despite everything I do care for him. I know that's not exactly what he hoped for, but it's more than he has now, and maybe he can learn to be grateful for whatever kind of affection I have to offer him..."

Christine decided to go see the Girys next thing in the morning. She had wasted too many days already. She had to find her Angel, she had to see him once again, to offer him her friendship, to make sure he would not look at her with so much desperation and hurt as he had done that last night. If she could bring him some peace of mind again, if she could somehow alleviate the pain she had caused him, she was certain, then he would stop haunting her dreams. Only then would she be free of that nightmare, that kept her restless and disturbed her, only then would she be able to truly put the past behind her, to look forward and start her new life with Raoul.


	2. Search

I am back! Thank you all, who have already started reading this new story, who have reviewed it, put it on alert or added to favorites. I know some of you are waiting for the end of So Lost, So Helpless". That will be next. I just wanted to let you know how Erik is doing in this one, before giving our couple tthe happy ending in my other current story.

Anyway, here is the next chapter, and I'll try to continue with the weekly updates from now on.

I stil don't own anything or anybody, just to make sure everybody understands that...

Chapter 2 - Search

The next morning, Christine mentioned at breakfast that she had to see Meg in order to discuss the wedding with her in more detail. "Maybe I could go there right away," she suggested. "I will need maybe half an hour with Meg. I would still be able to keep my appointment with the dressmaker for the fitting of my wedding gown."

Mme. La Baronne de Bouvays, Raoul's widowed aunt, gave her a disapproving look. "It is far too early for a lady to be out in the streets," she objected. "You cannot expect me to escort you at such a time."

Christine looked down. One of the reasons she wanted to go see the Girys immediately, was that she knew the elderly noblewoman would not be willing to accompany her. "Maybe I could go alone?" she asked hesitantly. "I know it is not quite appropriate to make visits unaccompanied," she added, anticipating her chaperone's objection. "But I am not going out in public, just to see my friend and bridesmaid in the presence of her mother. If you would allow me to use the carriage..." Her voice trailed.

Mme. de Bouvays frowned, then shrugged. This girl that her dear nephew was intent on marrying really had no idea how to conduct herself. She would be an embarrassment to the family. But maybe there was still time to call off that ridiculous wedding. Maybe if she tolerated this escapade, it could work in her favor. She could tell Raoul then that his so-called bride had insisted on such a compromising action despite her own attempts to teach that insufferable wench proper conduct.

"It is not what a noblewoman would do," she weakly objected, "but I guess that fact won't make you change your mind. So do as you see fit."

Christine winced at the older woman's barely concealed hostility. Not for the first time she wondered if marrying Raoul would really be such a good idea. Would their love survive under the constant criticism of his relatives and friends? She quickly brushed away that thought. She would deal with that problem later. Now she had to go see Mme. Giry and try to find out where her Angel was hiding at the moment. Everything else had to wait.

"Thank you, Mme. La Baronne," she managed to mumble. "I will be back in time to meet you, so that we can go see the dressmaker together."

Then she excused herself from the table to get ready for her morning visit.

Xxxx

Fifteen minutes later, the elegant de Bouvays-carriage stopped in front of Mme. Giry's little house. The Baronne's footman helped Christine out. She thanked him politely, then approached the Giry-home and rang the doorbell.

Mme. Giry answered the door. She was a bit surprised to see Christine, who had not come to their home since the night of the fire. They had met a few times, but always in public places, at a café for instance, or at the dressmaker's, where Meg was being fitted for her bridesmaid's dress. Why had Christine come today? What did she want? And what if...

"Christine!" Mme. Giry greeted the young woman a bit uneasily, inwardly praying that the young soprano's unexpected visit would go unnoticed by - him. "I guess you need to see Meg?"

Christine nodded. "Yes," she stammered, then added. "No. May I come in?"

Mme. Giry nodded and stepped aside to let Christine in. She lead the young woman into her small parlor, offered her a seat and sat down herself.

"What brings you here today, Christine, so early in the morning, if it is not the need to discuss your wedding with Meg?" she asked.

Christine swallowed, then inhaled deeply. This was going to be harder than she had thought. She summoned all her courage, then whispered, "Mme. Giry, where is – he?"

The elder woman froze in shock. Had she heard correctly? Had Christine actually asked her about the whereabouts of her other protégé, the man known as the Phantom of the Opera?

"He?" she asked, trying to sound as calm as possible. "Who?"

Christine wrung her hands. "He," she whispered, "my Angel. Surely, Madame you have heard from him? You must know him, you always delivered his notes to the managers, I need to see him, I need to know where he is," she blurted out somewhat incoherently.

Mme. Giry watched the nervous young woman for a while, then asked, "Why would you want to know his whereabouts? He let you go, he won't trouble you any longer. What else do you want of him?" Her voice sounded colder than she had intended and she was barely able to suppress a comment along the lines of "you broke his heart and made him utterly miserable, can you not finally leave him alone?"

Mme. Giry thought of the broken man hiding in the small guest room in the attic of the house, who was only a shadow of his former self, an empty shell, and she tried to imagine what seeing his beloved again might do to him in his current vulnerable state. No, under no circumstances could she allow Christine to see him. If there was any hope for him to ever recover from that terrible blow, he should never be forced to lay eyes on his lost love again.

"I …," Christine hesitated. She had wanted to say she needed to see that he was alright, but deep down she knew that he wasn't, couldn't be, because he loved her and had lost her. "Is he...," she stopped again and took another deep breath. "I mean, he is not injured?" she finally asked, then added. "I must apologize to him. I know I treated him badly. I want to … to tell him that I was wrong about him, that I will never forget him and that he will always be my friend."

Mme. Giry stiffened. No, there was no way she could allow that. She could not allow Erik to see Christine again, to get his hopes up again and have them shattered by her once more. He would not survive yet another blow.

She remembered how Erik had come to her home that night. It had been long past midnight, he had been filthy, shivering from the cold, his clothes damp, and he had been utterly exhausted, though more emotionally than physically. His gaze had been bland, she had not been certain if he even noticed her, it had been as if he looked through her. She had never seen him in such a state before, not even when he had come home from Persia all those years ago, and she had feared for his sanity, when he had told her in this hollow, dead voice, "it is over, Antoinette. Finished. Everything is over." He had collapsed in a chair then and she had had troubles getting him to the tiny guest room, where he had sunk down on the bed the way he was, in his dirty, wet clothes. She had realized then that he was in no condition of cleaning himself up and changing into some dry clothes of her late husband that she had offered him. Erik had not reacted to anything she said that night, so she had finally left him alone, though not without first wrapping a few warm blankets around his shivering form to make sure he would not catch a cold.

Erik had not emerged from that room ever since. He barely touched the food she brought him up every day, and she knew that he barely slept. He had fallen into a deep depression. Whenever she checked on him, he was either lying on the bed fully clothed, or sitting in a chair, staring at the wall or the ceiling, paying no attention to her. He never answered any of her questions, the only word she had heard him mutter had been the name of the woman sitting in front of her now.

"I am sorry, I cannot help you. I do not know where your former teacher is," she lied to Christine.

Tears were beginning to run down Christine's cheeks. "I promise I won't hurt him again," she sobbed. "On the contrary. I need to put things right, to tell him I am sorry. We need to be friends again... Please, Madame... "

"I already told you that there is nothing I can do for you," the former ballet mistress repeated. "I do not know where Erik is."

"Erik?" Christine looked up. "Is that... is that his name?"

Mme. Giry bit her tongue. She had said more than she had intended. By telling Christine that she knew the Phantom's given name, she had admitted that she knew him. "Yes," she said curtly. "But, as I said before, I have no idea where he is, or if he is injured or anything else you have asked me about." She paused for emphasis. "And even if I knew, Christine, you would be the last person on this world that I would tell. I think I do not have to explain to you, why. You probably know yourself how badly you have hurt him."

Christine nodded, her eyes swimming in tears. "Yes," she sobbed. "That's exactly why I need to see him again, to try and right the wrong. I need to ask his forgiveness, ..."

Mme. Giry closed her eyes. She was at a loss how to make Christine understand that she could not see her Angel. For it was obvious that such a meeting would be detrimental to Erik's already fragile mental state. Christine's reasons for seeing Erik were of a rather selfish nature. She apparently wanted him to forgive her, so that she could put the whole experience behind her and would not have to feel remorse over the way she had shunned a man that had only ever been kind to her and showered her with his love for years.

"He let you go," Mme. Giry tried again. "He won't interfere with your life again. You are free of him. That's all you need to know. For what it's worth, why don't you just forget him completely, pretend he never existed?"

Christine shook her head. "I cannot do that," she whispered miserably. "He was so kind to me, he taught me so much, he... I cannot just forget him. Please, Madame, help me. You must know something. Does he have another hiding place maybe, where he could could have gone? Please! It is important!"

Mme. Giry was losing her patience. "I cannot help you," she stated firmly.

Christine sighed. She was not convinced. She had a feeling as if the Madame were trying to protect him – Erik. That she thought, Christine would hurt him even more and therefore would not allow her to see him.

"Cannot – or will not?" she asked, her voice sounding bitter.

"Both," Mme. Giry retorted. "I do not know where he is, and if I knew I would not tell you, as I said. It is best for both of you, if you never see each other again."

Christine stood. She knew she would get no further information out of the older woman. There was therefore no point in prolonging her visit. She also had to return in order to be in time for her appointment at the dressmaker's.

"Thank you, Madame," she said uneasily. "But please promise me that you will tell me, if my... if Erik gets in touch with you."

Mme. Giry shook her head. "I cannot promise you that either, Christine. It would not be good for either one of you to see each other again. Believe me. Just forget the whole story and be happy with the Vicomte."

Christine nodded absentmindedly and took her leave after drying her tears in an effort to hide her emotional state from the servants waiting outside. She had been so certain that Mme. Giry would be able to tell her where to find her Angel, but the elder woman had been adamant that she could not help her. What was she to do now? Was there somebody else she could ask? If not, where could she look for him? Surely he could not be hiding in the ruins of the Opéra Populaire? The building had been declared unsafe. Where else could he be? And was it really true that Mme. Giry knew nothing, or had she been lying, deliberately withholding the answer from Christine? Christine was fairly certain that that was the case. But if so, why? Christine sighed. She knew the answer. Because she thought, seeing Christine again would hurt Erik even more.

"It must be really bad, then," Christine mumbled. "He is either injured, sick, in no condition to see me, or he is so devastated that she thinks he would not be able to deal with seeing me again. Or maybe both." She groaned. How deeply he must love her if losing her had affected him so badly, that Mme. Giry thought the mere presence of her might hurt him even more. For the first time she truly understood how much she had meant to this man and how terribly she must have hurt him by her actions.

"I need to see him, now more than ever," she thought. "I need to make him understand that I do care for him after all, even if not in the way he would want me to, but that that's not my fault, that I cannot force my heart to love him, just to make him happy. But that I will always see him as my friend." Christine was not sure yet, how she would find Erik without Mme. Giry's help, but she knew that she would not rest before she had seen him again and talked to him, seen him look at her with forgiveness in his eyes and heard him tell her with this angelic voice of his that they were still friends. She had to see him again, now more than ever.

Xxxx

After Christine had left, Mme. Giry waited a few minutes to make sure the young woman would not return, then she rose to her feet and made her way to the guest room in the attic, where Erik was staying. She needed to check on him, to see if he knew Christine had been visiting. She hoped he had not noticed his former student's presence in the house. They had not spoken too loudly, therefore chances were he had not heard them, but Erik's hearing, just like his eyesight, were better than that of most other men, so she worried.

As usual there was no answer, when she knocked on Erik's door. "I am coming in, Erik," she therefore announced, before entering the room. The sight in front of her caused her almost physical pain. Erik was lying on the bed, he had obviously once again been sleeping in his clothes, for they were rumpled. He was not wearing either his mask or wig, and he had not shaved in days, for his left cheek and his chin were covered in stubbles. The meal she had brought him last night was untouched – again.

Mme. Giry sighed. It hurt to see the man who had always been the epitome of personal elegance, impeccably dressed, in such a state of neglect. It was also becoming fairly obvious that Erik was losing weight. He had always been on the skinny side, but now his thinness was beginning to give him a sick look, which was only accentuated by his hollow cheeks.

"Erik," Mme. Giry addressed him softly. "You need to take better care of yourself. Take a bath, shave, put on clean clothes and then I'll bring you some breakfast."

Erik did not seem to listen. "Christine," he whispered, then a heart-breaking sob shook his thin frame. "Gone," he mumbled. "Lost and gone."

Erik stared up at the ceiling, as if he had not noticed Mme. Giry's presence. After a while, he continued to speak. "No use," he rasped. "Over. It's all over. My life, my love, my dreams, my music. Over and done with."

Mme. Giry fought back tears. She had to be strong, if she wanted to help him. "It won't be over unless you let it be, Erik," she said soothingly. "Your life is far from over. You lost one important thing, that does not mean that everything else is lost. With time you will get over this disappointment. With time, you will find your music again, I am sure of it. Just be patient."

Erik once again ignored her. "Night," he whispered. "Death..." A maniacal laughter erupted from his lips. "Death," he repeated. "Even death avoids me."

Mme. Giry took a deep breath, before she addressed her friend again. "You are too young to die, Erik," she tried again to reach him. "I know you are hurting badly now, but you can overcome the pain. You are strong. You can make a new start. I am sure there will be some good things in the future for you as well." She sighed. She knew herself how utterly unconvincing she sounded. After all, how many good things had Erik experienced in his life so far? His music that nobody other than her and Christine had ever appreciated? His love for Christine that had ended in heartbreak and disaster? Her own friendship for him that had not been able to help him find a place in society?

Erik sighed again. "Christine!" he called softly, longingly. "I love you!" His voice was so tender, so full of the purest, deepest love, that it brought tears to Mme. Giry's eyes. "I won't hurt you, love," he continued. "I don't want anything. I know it is too much to ask of you to love a monster. Why could you not stay with me? I would not have asked you to..."

Mme. Giry sat down on the bed beside him and patted Erik's hand. "You need to forget her, Erik," she said softly. "Christine is the past. Concentrate on the future."

Erik turned towards the wall, and Mme. Giry knew that once again she had failed to rouse him from his stupor, to help him fight his depression and make him want to live again.


	3. Shock

So, there finally is my promised update for "Black Despair". Thank you all for reading, for reviewing, for adding to your favorites and for putting on alert! It means a lot to me that you appreciate my stories!

Also, I want to mention that some of you complained in previous stories that Erik and Christine are always separated for so long. Well, that's not going to happen here. They will see each other again soon, which does not mean that they will just fall into each other's arms... But I just want you to know that I do pay attention to suggestions made by my readers.

And now I want to share something with you. I saw "Love Never Dies" this week in Vienna. It was advertised as non-scenic performance, for the first time in German (they had a run of only 8 performances). At first I was not sure I wanted to see that. I mean - translated? That could be iffy. If you've ever listened to "The Flying Dutchman" in Italian, you know what I mean. And non-scenic? A play like that? At last I decided I'd risk it. At worst it would be so weird that it would be funny. Opening night was Friday last week, so I searched the internet for reviews last weekend, and to my surprise they were all enthusiastic! Apparently the translation was really good and the performance was semi-scenic at least and really, really impressive. I was getting excited.

I went to see it on Wednesday. It was absolutely fantastic! They had the orchestra on stage, with an area behind and a large area in front of the orchestra, where the actors performed. They had garlands of light-bulbs hanging above the orchestra to symbolize the variété atmosphere of Coney Island, a make-up table in the foreground to the right and a piano to the left. The actors were not actually wearing costumes, though what they were wearing fit the characters, and they did not change. Everybody wore the same clothes throughout the whole Phantom was not even wearing a mask (apparently for copyright-reasons, if it's non-scenic, they can't use the mask).

During the short introduction to "Till I Hear You Sing" three actors performed a pantomime of the Final Lair-Scene behind the orchestra - just like you sometimes see on TV in a two-parter "what happened last time"... The actors actually acted their parts, nobody just stood there and sang their lines. They interacted with each other as if it were a real stage production and they were between very good and excellent! Christine in particular had a fantastic voice, so warm and sweet, she managed to get me teary-eyed halfway through "Look With Your Heart" and I cried throughout the whole following scene between her and the Phantom. His voice does not exactly fit my idea of a perfect male voice, I prefer darker, warmer voices, but what a stage presence, what a personality, what a wide range of expression! These two had me glued to my seat and following every tiniest movement. Raoul was especially good in the bar scene, the boy who played Gustave was impressive, and the two Girys were not bad either.

Ha, and guess what? After Christine puts Gustave to bed and the Phantom appears and they see each other again for the first time in 10 years, they looked at each other, then he opened his arms, she threw herself into his embrace and they kissed passionately!

The translation was very good, too. Not always verbatim, but close enough. It paid a lot of attention to keeping the number of syllables and the musical flow of the verses the same and it managed to keep the emotional message intact. Outstanding job by the translator!

The performance ended with roaring applause. After the actors had taken their bows, the manager appeared on stage and I was wondering what was going to happen now. Sometimes, if an actor is about to receive a decoration or is celebrating their 100th performance with the ensemble or something like that, there is a small celebration on stage. But the gentleman announced that there was a very special guest of honor in the audience that night, and would he please come onstage now - Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber! Apparently not even the performers had known of his presence. He seems to have been as uncertain about a 'non-scenic' performance as I had been, and therefore had not come to the opening night. But once he heard about the rave reviews, he decided he had to see for himself, what those people in Vienna were doing, and he was totally impressed! He thanked everybody who had made this happen, he congratulated the cast, the orchestra and the conductor and kept telling everybody how happy he was to see his work performed in such a wonderful way.

PS: The title song is on youtube at /watch?v=dK5ANckyz7k&feature= , obviously filmed with a smart phone, and at you can find pictures that will give you an idea what it looked like.

Now on to the next chapter, and keep in mind, that even though I was in the same room as a certain Sir this week, I still don't own anything or anybody.

Chapter 3 - Shock

Christine could not get her meeting with Mme. Giry out of her mind. The longer she thought about it, the more she became convinced that the former ballet mistress knew something, but had been unwilling to share that information with her. "She seems to fear that I would hurt him again," Christine thought. "And after all that has happened, I cannot blame her. I really have not given her any reason to believe that I do care for my Angel in my own way, even though my feelings for him are not of a romantic nature. But if Mme. Giry feels like she has to protect him from me, then he must be in pretty bad shape, which means I need to see him sooner, rather than later, to comfort him and put things right between us."

She sighed. It all sounded so simple, if only there had not been the problem of her not knowing how to find Erik. Christine sighed again. Erik. His name. She had never bothered to ask him about his name. It had never even occurred to her that, like any other person, he must have one. "I have treated him so poorly," she moaned. "It is no wonder that Mme. Giry thinks I will bring him only more pain." And she was more determined than ever to find Erik and try to convince him that she regretted her previous behavior.

Christine racked her brain and tried to remember every tiniest detail her Angel had ever told her, in order to decide whether or not that bit of information contained some hint as to where he might be hiding now. But several more days went by without her making any progress in her efforts of finding him. Christine was getting restless. Her wedding was to take place the next day, and she knew she could not be happy with Raoul if she had not resolved things with her Angel first, but she was running out of time. What could she do? Where should she look for her Angel?

The more she thought about it, Christine decided that her best chance of finding her Angel ever again, was still Mme. Giry, even though the latter had been anything but helpful. "She knows something," Christine thought. "Of that I am certain. But how can I get that information out of her? Asking her again probably won't make her change her mind and tell me what I want to know. So what else could I do?"

Christine closed her eyes in shock as realization hit her. There was only one thing she could do that held some chance of success, but... was she willing to do that? "It would hurt Raoul immensely," she sighed, "he may not even be able to forgive me, though, if he truly does love me, maybe..." She shuddered. Was it worth to risk Raoul's love in order to search for her Angel? Could she do that? Could she live knowing that she had broken yet another man's heart, and knowing that she had destroyed her chance at happiness with her beloved Raoul through her own doing? And what about the gossip this would cause? How badly would Raoul be affected, and herself? Would it even be possible for Raoul to marry her later, even if he forgave her, after such a scandal?

But what about her Angel? Could she really pass up on that only hope she had of finding him and putting things right between them? Did she not owe it to him to do everything humanly possible to assure him of her continued friendship and support?

Christine was still undecided, when in the late afternoon, Raoul paid her his daily visit. "For the last time, Little Lotte," he said, hugging her. "This is the last time I come for a visit. From tomorrow on, we will be together forever."

Christine shuddered. Tomorrow it would be too late. Tomorrow she would be Raoul's wife, living with him in his mansion. Then she would not be able anymore to do what deep down she knew she had to do, find her Angel and make peace with him.

"Can we...," her voice was barely audible. "Can we wait a bit longer?" she asked.

Raoul stared at her. "What do you mean?" he retorted. "Wait?"

"The wedding," Christine mumbled. "Can it wait? Do we have to do it tomorrow?"

Raoul pulled her closer. "Nervous?" he chided her. "I have heard that many a bride is getting a bit... how shall I put it? That... I mean... you don't have to be scared of what will happen tomorrow night. I will be gentle with you..."

Christine shook her head. She had not even had time to worry about _that_. "I mean, I don't think I can get married tomorrow," she said. "It has nothing to do with you, Raoul, I do love you, you know that, and I do want to marry you, just not tomorrow. It's... it's too soon. So much has been going on lately, I have not been able to come to terms with all of it, I... I don't think I am ready to be a loving wife. I need to find my own peace of mind first."

Raoul laughed uneasily. "That's nonsense," he interrupted her. "I promise you, I won't ask anything of you that you cannot give yet. Remember? I've been through the same ordeal you've been through. I understand. We will be fine. It's just nerves. Sleep over it, and tomorrow morning you will be my happy Little Lotte, my loving bride again."

Christine looked down. "No," she whispered. "I don't think we should get married, while we are both still in such emotional upheaval, trying to heal. I most definitely need more time to get over that experience, and probably so do you. I am sorry, Raoul, I should have told you sooner, but I cannot marry you tomorrow."

Raoul was beginning to lose his patience with her. "Why on earth would you feel that way?" he asked. "What's gotten into you?"

Christine sighed. "I need more time," she repeated weakly. "I am not calling it off completely, I am just asking you to give me a few more weeks," she added, her eyes pleading with Raoul.

"Do you have any idea what you are asking of me?" Raoul fought to remain at least somewhat calm. "If we do not get married tomorrow, this will be the biggest scandal in Paris, especially after certain recent events."

Christine felt sorry for Raoul. She knew exactly what she was asking of him, but she also knew that she would never be able to forgive herself if she gave up on her Angel now, without any further attempt to make peace with him, that she could never live happily ever after with Raoul if she could not resolve this business with her former tutor.

"I know," she whispered miserably, wringing her hands. "But I cannot. Raoul, please understand, I cannot!"

"We need to get married tomorrow," Raoul once again tried to reason with her. "The gossip... and my family..."

Christine sighed. She knew that Raoul's family would probably welcome her decision not to get married tomorrow. The problem with that was, that they would then be even more adamant that she was not right for Raoul, and thus could jeopardize her future wedding with her childhood sweetheart.

"Your family will be relieved," she reminded Raoul. "They have been trying to come between us for quite some time now. They will probably be only too willing to help you cover this up."

Raoul groaned. Christine was of course right. His family would willingly deal with the scandal, only to be rid of her. "If we call off the wedding tomorrow," he finally stated, "you realize that it might be next to impossible for us to get married later on? We might have to leave Paris altogether and go where nobody knows us at all."

Christine nodded. "I have thought about that," she admitted, "and I know it is hard, but if you do love me, please do this for me, Raoul. Please, don't force me to go through with the wedding tomorrow." She sounded frantic now, and was obviously close to a nervous breakdown.

Raoul was not quite sure what to make of Christine's state of mind. "What do you want me to give as the reason for our delayed wedding?" he asked brusquely. "I cannot well tell people that you are ill, since you were fine this morning when you went for the final fitting of your gown. Many people saw you on your way to the dressmaker's. I am obviously not ill either. So what do you think I can tell the wedding guests, the priest, everybody?"

"I don't know," Christine cried. "I honestly have no idea, Raoul. I only know that I cannot marry you tomorrow. Soon, I am sure of that, but not tomorrow. Please, understand, I cannot!"

Raoul realized that Christine was getting more and more agitated. She obviously was approaching a nervous breakdown. Maybe it was better to put off the wedding for a while, though he had no idea how he was going to explain that to his family.

"We may have to run off later and live abroad," he told Christine. "But if you really feel you cannot go through with it tomorrow..."

A tiny smile played across Christine's lips and she hugged Raoul tightly. "Thank you, Raoul," she whispered. "Your love and understanding means the world to me."

Raoul pulled her close and kissed her sweetly. "Just don't make me wait too long, Lotte," he said. Then he remembered something. "Since we are not getting married anytime soon, my aunt will refuse to accommodate you here any longer," he informed Christine. "We will have to think about something. You will have to move out here tomorrow..."

Christine almost sighed with relief. That was exactly what she had been planning. But she pretended to be surprised by that consequence of her request to cancel the wedding. "Oh!" she said, her eyes wide, "I had not thought about that yet!" Then her face lit up as if struck by a splendid idea. "Maybe I could go and live with the Girys for a while?" she suggested.

Raoul frowned. He was not too pleased with that suggestion. The Girys were working class women, not exactly the kind of people he wanted his future wife to associate with. But then, he remembered that Mme. Giry cared very much about Christine and had always been like a mother to her, and he also realized that no respectable woman of his own social circle would be willing to take Christine in, once the news of the cancelled wedding got out. That basically only left a hotel as an alternative, where Christine would be on her own and unprotected. Perhaps it was better to let her stay with the Girys at least until he could think of a better solution.

Raoul nodded. "The Girys, then," he agreed. "Do you want to stay another night with ma tante?"

Christine shook her head. "I guess we'd best tell Mme. la Baronne now that the wedding is off," she whispered. "Then she probably won't want me here any longer."

Raoul sighed. "I still wish I could convince you to marry me tomorrow," he said. "We could just stay friends like we are now, for the first few weeks, till you think you are ready, but since you are so sure that this would put you under more emotional pressure than you already are..."

"I am sure," Christine stated. And she was. This had gone better than she had feared, Raoul was hurt, but not too mad at her. He was still hoping to marry her at some point in the future, so she had not really burned any bridges behind her. Now her first priority had to be her Angel, once she had made peace with him, she could think abut repairing her relationship with Raoul. "And I love you, Raoul, even more than before, for being willing to give me the time I need."

Raoul smiled. How could he ever deny her anything when she looked at him that way? He pulled her close and the couple kissed passionately.

Xxx

A few hours later, Christine made her way to Mme. Giry's house. She had not sent notice to the former ballet mistress to expect her, she had a feeling that then she would receive a reply telling her that she could not stay with her. No, she had to surprise the good Madame, be there on her doorstep with her bags and nowhere else to go, in order to be allowed to stay. But stay with Mme. Giry was exactly what she must do, if she wanted to find out about her Angel. Only in continued close contact with the elder woman did she stand a chance to overhear a thing, to observe something else, to put two and two together and at last figure out where her Angel, Erik, was hiding.

Christine therefore had taken her time in packing her bags after the rather unpleasant conversation with Raoul's aunt. She was in no particular hurry to go to Mme. Giry's home, for she knew the later she arrived there, the greater her chances were of not being thrown out into the dark. Even if Mme. Giry was now uncomfortable around her and maybe even angry with her for the way she had treated her Angel, she was convinced that the older woman would not want to put her at risk by sending her out into the night alone.

Mme. de Bouvays had refused Christine the use of her carriage, and thus she had to take a cab. Christine asked the driver to drop her off a few streets from Mme. Giry's house, then walked the last few blocks. She cautiously approached the Giry-home and rang the doorbell.

Meg opened. "Christine?" Her friend seemed surprised. "What are you doing here at that hour? Shouldn't you be getting your beauty sleep so that you look at your best tomorrow for the wedding?"

Christine smiled at her. "The wedding has been cancelled." When she saw Meg's shock, she added, "not permanently, just for the time being. I … it's too soon for me. I need to come to terms with … you know, all that happened..."

Meg nodded, then noticed Christine's bag. "Your bag?" she asked hesitantly.

"I cannot stay with the Baronne anymore," Christine explained. "I need to stay here."

Meg fidgeted, her slightly shrill voice betraying her nervousness. "I … I don't know..." she mumbled. What should she do? There was no spare bedroom, since Erik was occupying the only guest room. Where should they put Christine up? And even if they found a way... Christine and Erik under the same roof? That could only lead to disaster.

"Who is at the door, Meg?" Mme. Giry's voice sounded angry. "We do not buy anything, tell them!"

"Maman, it's Christine!" Meg nervously called over her shoulder, letting Christine in. "The wedding is off and she wants to stay here!"

Mme. Giry stood in the door to the parlor. "Christine!" her voice sounded anything but pleased to see the young woman. "What is it that Meg just told me? You are not marrying the Vicomte tomorrow?"

Christine shook her head. "No, Mme. Giry, I cannot. It's way too soon. I do love Raoul, but I cannot be a good wife to him right now. I need to deal with my own issues first and come to terms with... the past. Raoul has agreed to reschedule the wedding." She beamed. "He loves me so much. I am truly blessed to have him, he is such an understanding fiancé. But for obvious reasons I cannot stay with his aunt now, and you are really the only other people I know..."

Christine noticed how Meg and her mother were glancing at each other, obviously both unsure what to say.

"Well... ah...," the usually so resolute Mme. Giry stuttered. "There is a … problem. We have no room for you, we …." she remembered that they had mentioned a guest room to Christine several times over the past few years and tried to come up with an explanation why no such room was available for her stay now.

"The roof is in need of repair," Meg chimed in. "It is raining into the guest room, and therefore the furniture and carpet in there is all unusable. Since we are currently unemployed, we have put off repairs..."

Christine looked down to hide her surprise. Those glances the two ladies had exchanged and that stupid excuse why the guest room was unavailable, … could it possibly be? "I need to pretend that I have not noticed anything," she told herself. "Or they won't let me stay. I will have to wait till they are both asleep, then I must investigate. If my suspicion is right, if they do indeed hide him here, then I will be able to talk to my Angel sooner than I had hoped."

She gave the Girys a nervous look. "There is nowhere else I can go tonight," she whispered. "Maybe the couch here in the parlor? I promise I can look for a hotel tomorrow, but it's so late tonight, and ..."

Christine did not need to act. It was quite obvious to both Girys that she was a nervous wreck. Mme. Giry finally relented. "I guess the couch would do for one night," she agreed. "But tomorrow we will have to think of something else..."

Christine smiled. If she was right, then one night was all she needed. "Thank you, Mme. Giry," she beamed at the former ballet mistress. "I promise I won't cause you any trouble, I can make my bed myself if you show me where to find a blanket and a pillow, and I will help with breakfast..."

"Don't worry," Mme. Giry interrupted her. "Meg can bring you a spare pillow and blanket. Just unpack whatever you need for the night and make yourself comfortable. It's getting late anyway, we should all go to bed." And she prayed that this would go well, that the fact that both, Christine and Erik, would be spending the night in her house would not cause any further problems for either one of them, especially Erik, whose depression had, if anything, gotten worse those past few days.

Christine pretended to be very tired and once Meg arrived with the blanket and pillow, got ready for the night. The Girys wished her a good night and retired to their respective rooms as well.

Christine lay awake. Even if she had wanted to, she could not have slept. She was full of anticipation. Maybe she would soon see her Angel again and be able to talk to him! She was sure that once she found him, everything else would be easy. They would talk, she would convince him of her continued friendship and he would be able to forgive her.

A few hours passed. The house was quiet. It was probably long past midnight and the Girys certainly must be asleep by now. Christine stood up. Barefoot, and careful, not to make any noise, she slowly made her way to the staircase. Step by step she climbed up. There were only two doors on the first floor. One probably lead to Mme. Giry's bedroom, the other one to Meg's, but there were more stairs leading up to an attic. A room underneath the roof, which was supposedly leaking! If her suspicion that Mme. Giry was hiding her Angel here was correct, then he must be up there.

Cautiously, Christine climbed up yet another flight of stairs. Then she stood in front of another door, obviously the one to the guest room. She hesitated. Could she enter like that? If it was indeed only an empty room as the Girys claimed, then yes. But what if he was hiding here? Would he have traps installed securing the door? Would he be asleep? She somewhat doubted that. She remembered that her Angel had never seemed to need much sleep. He had spent most nights in front of his organ, composing or playing.

She pressed her ear to the door. Maybe she could find out that way, if somebody was in there. If he was there and awake, he would make some noise sooner or later, since he was not expecting anybody spying on him outside the door.

Christine's heart almost stopped as she heard a gurgling sound coming from inside the guest room. It sounded like somebody was in trouble in there. Instinctively she pulled the door open, then a blood-curdling scream escaped her throat as she saw the scene in front of her, illuminated by pale moonlight. There, on the bed, lay a man, fully clothed, writhing in pain, moaning and retching, covered in slimy, greenish vomit. Her Angel.


	4. Fighting Death

Hi everybody! I am a day early! Thank you all for reading, reviewing, adding to favorites or putting on alert! Your support is invaluable! I am sorry that I made some of you envious for having had a chance to see a truly amazing performance of LND, but I am glad you could see it too, MarilynKC! And while I think that Japan might be a bit far away, there are also rumors of a UK tour in 2014. That I would definitely consider!

On to the next chapter, let's see what is wrong with our Erik! And BTW, I still don't own a thing even remotely connected to POTO. :-(

Chapter 4 - Fighting Death

"Madame Giry!" Christine flew down the stairs and knocked on the two bedroom doors. "Quick! I need help! My Angel..."

A rather angry Mme. Giry emerged from one of the doors, wearing a hastily thrown on robe on top of her nightgown, and a moment later, Meg sleepily peeked out from the other room. Mme. Giry stared at Christine and cursed the moment she had allowed her to stay the night. What had gotten into the girl? How could she scream like that in the middle of the night? Erik must have heard her. How would he react if he learned that Christine was here, in the same building as he was? She hesitantly glanced at the stairs leading up to the attic. Was Erik coming down? Then she gasped. What if Christine had been up there? What if she had found out that Erik was hiding in their guest room? Would he still be safe here, then?

"Come quickly!" Christine's frightened plea brought Mme Giry back to reality. "My Angel needs help, he is very ill!"

"What?" Mme. Giry grasped the door-frame for support. Had she heard correctly? Had Christine just mentioned her Angel? Did she know then that he was here, or... "You must have had a nightmare," she tried to calm down Christine – and herself - but the latter frantically shook her head.

"No, I did not dream this!" Christine screamed hysterically. "I know that he is here, I've seen him, and he is in pain, he needs help." She tugged at Mme. Giry's sleeve, trying to pull her towards the stairs that lead to the attic.

"You have been up there?" Mme. Giry's stern voice accused Christine. "What business of yours is it to sneak around other people's homes in the night?"

Christine winced. She knew that the elder woman had a point, but she also knew that something had to be done for her Angel – now, before it was too late. "Can we discuss this later?" Christine seemed to explode. "After we've helped Erik? We are losing valuable time. Now come. Please!" She once again tugged at Mme. Giry's sleeve and this time the former ballet mistress moved towards the stairs. Mme. Giry was getting worried now. There was something so desperate in Christine's voice. What if the young woman was right and Erik had fallen seriously ill?

The two women ran up the stairs together, a curious Meg not far behind. The moment they reached the attic and Mme. Giry got a look at Erik through the still open door, she stopped in shock. "Oh my God," she whispered, then flew to Erik's side. She grabbed his wrist and felt for a pulse, then turned to Christine and Meg, who were standing in the doorway.

"Quick," she told the girls. "Get me a basin of water and a sponge, an empty bowl, the larger, the better, and a pitcher of water and a glass..."

Meg left to fetch the items her mother had asked for but Christine seemed like glued to the spot. "What is wrong with him?" she asked hesitantly.

Mme. Giry had turned Erik on his side now and was working on his throat while hastily explaining the situation to Christine. "Poison," she murmured, "I have no idea what he has taken or where he got it. We need to try and make him vomit as much as possible to get the poisonous substance – whatever it is – out of his system. We must also try to make him drink as much water as possible. That way, the poison will be diluted and thus less dangerous." She turned to Erik, whose eyes were glassy and who was obviously semi-conscious at best. "Spit it out, Erik," she soothingly cooed, trying to make him relax. "Don't fight the retching. The nasty substance you took needs to get out again."

Christine paled, as Erik coughed and retched again, his body convulsing in pain, before some more of the disgusting slimy substance poured from his mouth. "Will he be alright?" she asked nervously.

Mme. Giry shook her head, while inserting her finger into Erik's mouth to make him vomit again. "I don't know," she whispered. "He is weak, and he is also running a high fever, probably caused by whatever it is he ingested, and there is no way of knowing, how long ago he took it, how much damage the substance has already done to him." She stared at Christine. "If you truly care about him, go and help Meg bring up the items I requested."

Christine nodded and ran down to find Meg, praying that they were not too late, that their efforts to keep her Angel alive would be successful. "If he does not survive this," she thought, "I will never forgive myself. What if he took the poison because of losing me?"

The next two hours, all three women frantically worked to keep Erik alive. Mme. Giry, who had some basic first aid knowledge, did her best to make him throw up as much as possible of the poisonous substance while making sure he was not drowning in his own vomit, and the two girls kept emptying the bowl, in which Mme. Giry tried to catch as much as possible of the slimy substance that Erik was spitting out and providing more fresh water, both, to clean up Erik's face, and to make him drink.

Once their patient seemed to relax a bit, and the retching stopped, the three women looked at each other, exhausted. "Is he out of danger?" Christine asked hopefully.

Mme. Giry sighed. "I think so," she said, "but I am no doctor, and I do not know what exactly it is he took, how dangerous the substance is. We did what we could, though. There cannot be much of the poison left in him. We may just have been in time."

Then she turned to Meg. "Get me clean sheets, and one of your father's old pajamas, and more water. There is dried vomit all over the bed and his clothes. I cannot let him lie in all that filth."

Meg nodded, and both girls left to get the things, Mme. Giry had asked for, while the latter began to undress Erik. She was not comfortable with what she was doing, but she knew it had to be done. Erik's clothes were not only soiled with vomit, they were also sweated through. She had finished stripping him, when she heard the girls approaching. Mme. Giry quickly draped a blanket over Erik's hips for modesty's sake.

Meg entered first, her arms full with clean sheets and some sleepwear of her late father, followed by Christine, who was carrying a basin of water and a sponge. When Christine saw Erik's prone form, covered by nothing but a blanket over his most private parts, she blushed furiously and almost dropped the basin. For the first time, she truly realized that her... that Erik was a man. He was neither angel, nor phantom, just a man like any other man she knew. And underneath that blanket he was naked. That thought was thrilling and disturbing at the same time, and Christine was not sure what to make of these strange feelings that assaulted her. She forced herself to look away from that particular spot and to concentrate on the job at hand. Really, how shameless a woman was she, if all she could think of was the fact that she only had to lift the blanket to see...

Christine blushed again, shocked at the effect that Erik's state of undress had on her, before she tore her eyes away from the blanket and let them roam over her Angel's upper body. "He has lost weight," she stated flatly, shocked at how thin he now was. A few weeks ago, when they had performed "Don Juan Triumphant" together on stage, he had not been that skinny, of that Christine was certain. The shirt he had worn that night had shown off quite a bit of his then muscular chest, but now his strength seemed gone, and his ribs were sticking out.

Mme. Giry nodded. "Put everything over there," she instructed the two girls. "Then go back to sleep. I won't need your help with cleaning up here."

Christine hesitantly put down the basin, then approached Erik's bed. She grasped one of his hands and squeezed it tightly. "Get well, Angel," she whispered. "for me. For our friendship." As she gazed into his ugly, bare face, she realized, how vulnerable he looked, how frail, and her heart ached at the thought that she might be the cause of all of this. "I did not mean to hurt you so," she added weakly. For the first time she wondered if he would be able to forgive her after all the hurt and the pain she had put him through, and if she would ever be able to make it up to him for the suffering she had caused him.

Slowly, she followed Meg down. "I don't think mother will be mad at you anymore in the morning," Meg told Christine. "When you first were screaming and knocking on our doors, I knew she was livid, especially when she realized you had found out that we are hiding – him – here. But if you had not found him tonight... " Meg sighed dramatically. "I am not sure he would still have been alive in the morning. If he does survive this, and I think chances are good now, it will be thanks to you. You have most likely saved his life."

Christine shook her head. "There might have been no need for saving his life if I had not hurt him so badly," she whispered. Now that the tension was finally fading away, it sought release in tears.

Meg gave her a quizzical look, then put a comforting arm around her and asked, "Christine, why did you come here? And what does he truly mean to you?"

Christine sobbed. "He is my best friend," she confessed, "and I feel responsible for what happens to him now. I don't want him dead or miserable. I want him alive and well, and – happy."

Meg gave her an encouraging smile, but deep down she wondered if Christine was being totally honest with her, or if Christine even was aware of her own feelings. Somehow Meg could not fight off the suspicion that there was more to it than her friend let on.

Xxxx

Christine did not get much sleep that night. The shock of finding Erik again, obviously shortly after he had taken poison, the fear of losing him now, and the strange effect his barely concealed nakedness had had on her, kept her awake.

When it finally was time to get up again, and the three ladies had breakfast together, Christine's first question was about Erik. "Is he better?" she asked. "Will I be able to talk to him today?"

Mme. Giry hesitated. "I do not think it would be wise for you to see him," she then told Christine. "It would agitate him unnecessarily, and he is still very weak from his ordeal last night."

Christine paled. "Did he tell you that? Does he not want to see me, is he so mad at me for the pain I caused him?" she asked uncertainly.

Mme. Giry sighed. She had sat with Erik all night. His fever had gone down a bit, after she had sponged him down with cold water and dressed him in clean pajamas. He had briefly regained consciousness earlier this morning, and one single word had escaped his parched lips. "Christine!" Then he had turned towards her and said, "she came back to me. She was here tonight, she brought me back from the dead." There had been so much love in his voice, so much hope...

Mme. Giry had simply squeezed Erik's hand to show her sympathy, knowing pretty well that Christine had not changed her mind on her feelings for Erik, or rather lack thereof, and was still planning on marrying the Vicomte. If she admitted to Erik now that Christine was here, he would get his hopes up and the realization that Christine could never be his would ultimately probably be even more devastating if she now allowed him to hope. She had therefore decided that Erik could not know that Christine was indeed staying with them at the moment. So she had told him, "you must have dreamed that she was here."

Erik's face had fallen. "The wedding," he had murmured. "It is today, is it not? I did not want to see that day, I wanted to be gone when she... and him..."

Mme. Giry had hugged him then. "Don't think about it," she had told him. "Don't torture yourself with such thoughts. If you have to think of her, imagine her happy, smiling, and try to derive joy from the knowledge that she is happy."

Erik had nodded, not too convinced. "I guess I must learn to do that," he had whispered, "since death itself has rejected me..." Exhaustion had then taken over and he had fallen asleep again.

Mme. Giry pushed aside the memory of this short conversation with her recuperating patient and faced Christine again. "He does not know that you are here," she told the younger woman. "He was delirious from the fever last night, he did not realize you are really here. He thinks it was all a fever-induced dream."

"But then you must tell him that I am here and need to talk to him, to – apologize and to make peace with him," Christine urged.

Mme. Giry shook her head. "What for?" she asked Christine. "I told you before and I am telling you again, there is no point in you seeing him again. I cannot blame you for not feeling the same way about him as he does about you, since that's not your fault. You cannot force your heart to love somebody. But the fact that he loves you so deeply, though without a chance of fulfillment, also means that anything reminding him of you will cause him pain. Seeing you again only to lose you once again could be detrimental to him, especially in his current vulnerable state. You've seen him. You know how much weight he has lost over those past few weeks, and surely you must realize how utterly depressed and desperate he must have been in order to... do what he did last night."

Christine looked down. "That was because of me, was it not? Because he had lost me..."

Mme. Giry nodded. "He did not want to see the day of your wedding," she murmured. "He could not stand the thought of you and the Vicomte..."

Christine shuddered. "He needs to know that I do care for him, too. He probably thinks I loathe him, because I went along with Raoul's plan to catch him, and because I exposed his face to the whole audience, but that's not true. Just because I don't love him..."

"If you truly mean that," Mme. Giry interrupted her, "if you truly do care for Erik, leave him alone, stay out of his way. That's the greatest service you can render him. Don't remind him of what he has lost, don't give him reason to hope, just pray that he can forget you."

Christine was sobbing now. "I cannot do that," she whispered. "I need to make him understand that I am sorry, that I never intended to hurt him. I need to tell him that I do consider him my dearest friend."

"For your sake or for his sake?" Mme. Giry asked sharply. "You might want to consider if it is his peace of mind that you care about or yours. If the former, then I suggest you leave him alone, if the latter..." She paused for emphasis. "Maybe it would help calm your conscience to concentrate on the fact that you are trying to spare him more pain by leaving him alone."

Christine felt tears forming in the corners of her eyes. She knew that Mme. Giry had a point, that maybe not seeing Erik again was best for him. But why did her heart ache so much at the thought that she could never see him again? Why did it hurt so much to imagine never to hear his voice again, never to be granted his forgiveness?

"Also, keep in mind, that Erik has just survived an ordeal," Mme. Giry continued. "He is very weak and needs lots of rest to fully recover from … his act of desperation last night. He is in no condition for a tearful reunion and for your confessions and pleas for forgiveness."

Christine nodded. "I will not endanger his health," she finally decided. "And I will think about what you have told me. I certainly know that I can never be at peace again, unless he forgives me, but I have never thought about how such a conversation might affect him. I hoped that the knowledge of my continued friendship might mean something to him, that it would help him to get over the pain and disappointment I caused him by not returning his feelings, but you may of course also be right, and learning that friendship is all I can offer him, might hurt him even more. Give me a few days," she begged. "Till Erik is a bit stronger. Right now, as you have pointed out, he is in no condition for such a conversation anyway. I need to think about this, but even if I do decide that I want to talk to him after all, it will have to wait till he is better."

Mme. Giry nodded uneasily. She would have preferred if Christine had promised to give up altogether on her foolish plan of talking to Erik, but at least she was not going to do it anytime soon, and maybe, over the next few days, she could be convinced to let it be, to leave the house and marry her Vicomte.

"Since he is asleep," Christine's voice interrupted Mme. Giry's thoughts. "Could I see him? I would not even go in, just have a glimpse at him from the door – to see with my own eyes that he is better?"


	5. Conversations

So, here is the next chapter of the story. Let's see, what happens now, that Erik has survived the suicide attempt. Thank you all for reading, for reviewing, for putting on alert and adding to favorites, and a special "welcome back" to Deadtom77 and trrmo77! (You two just got me confused with your 77s! You did that on purpose, right?).

Also, I want to tell you that one of my very first readers has returned to . Her name is Fairyteyla and she writes E/C-stories in French. So, if you do read French, check her out. I cried my eyes out with her story "Une Vie de Mascarade". Tragic, yet utterly beautiful and touching. As to her current story, well, of course I do not know the end yet, but it's very dramatic right now!

Anyway, back to our story, and just so that you won't forget, I do not own anything or anybody...

Chapter 5 - Conversations

Mme. Giry sighed. "What for?" she asked pointedly. "Why do you insist on prolonging this situation? It is not just Erik I am concerned about here, it is you as well. For you, too, it would be better to put this all behind you. Even though your relationship with Erik may once have been a positive influence on your life, later on it brought you much distress. Since you do not love him the way he wants you to, the best thing for both of you is a clean cut. Accept that under these circumstances it is not possible to continue whatever friendship there may be left between the two of you, and that it is best never to see each other again."

Tears were forming in Christine's eyes. "I understand what you mean," she whispered forlornly, "I am just not ready yet to let go completely."

Meg gave her a curious glance. As much as Christine kept telling them that she was deeply in love with the Vicomte and would be marrying him once she had made peace with Erik, Meg was not entirely convinced. Her friend quite obviously had strong feelings for the man who had been her guardian angel and tutor for so many years. Was it really just friendship and gratitude or was there more to it?

"Maman, Christine only wants to see if Erik really is out of danger," she interjected timidly. "Since he is asleep right now as you say, he won't know that she went to check on him. And I can understand that in order to put things behind her, she needs to know for certain that he has survived the..." Her voice trailed. She could not bring herself to say aloud that Erik hat tried to take his own life.

Mme. Giry relented. "You may come up with me," she told Christine, "and have a look at Erik from the door, but be very quiet and don't wake him, and once you have seen that he is indeed still alive, you must promise to go back down."

Christine nodded. What would she not have promised to be allowed to see her Angel? She obediently followed Mme. Giry to the attic, where the latter motioned her to stay out of sight when she opened the door. The former ballet mistress wanted to make sure that Erik was still sleeping, before she let Christine have a look at him.

When Mme. Giry was satisfied that Erik was sound asleep, she opened the door a crack again and allowed Christine to see with her own eyes that the former Phantom was alive, and while not well, still much better than he had been the previous night.

Christine gazed at her former tutor and smiled. Erik seemed almost peaceful in his slumber. His unmasked, deformed features were relaxed in sleep, and while she still found the right side of his face quite ugly, she felt less repulsed by it than she remembered. His chest rose and fell with his now regular breathing and it was obvious that he was on the way to recovery.

Christine quickly closed the door when Erik began to stir and Mme. Giry returned to his bedside. Christine knew that she should now go back down as she had promised, but somehow she could not get herself to move to the stairs. She remained outside the closed bedroom door, her heart beating violently, desperately waiting for her Angel to wake up fully so that she could hear his voice again, if only through a closed door.

She did not have to wait long. "Antoinette," she heard Erik say, his voice weak and raspy, "you should have let me die." Christine had to fight back tears. If possible, he sounded even more heartbroken than that fateful night, when she had returned the ring to him and he had told her that he loved her.

"Don't even think that, Erik," Mme. Giry replied warmly. "I did not help you escape from the gypsies all those years ago, to let you die without even trying to save your life."

Christine froze. Gypsies? What was Mme. Giry talking about? She realized that she knew next to nothing about the man who had been a major influence in her life. "He knows so much about me," she thought guiltily, "I always could tell him everything, he always listened, but I never bothered to ask him anything..." Of course at first she had believed him to be an angel, and when he had finally revealed himself to her, things had gone awry between them, mostly through her own fault. Because she had ripped his mask off, forced him to show her his face when neither of them was prepared for such a confrontation. "I should have had the common sense to realize there was a reason he was wearing that mask," she thought. "He was already telling me he was a man, he was showing me his home. I should have understood that if in this pivotal moment of truth between us he still covered something, kept some knowledge from me, that he must have a good reason for doing so. I should have respected his privacy and waited until he was ready to tell me everything, to share even this last secret with me."

Christine felt as if she had destroyed something very precious by ripping off that mask, though she was not quite sure, why she felt that way. If she had respected his privacy and waited till he was ready to show her his face, then what? Then he might not have felt betrayed by her, then they might still be friends. But wouldn't he still be in love with her, while she was happily engaged to Raoul? Wouldn't she still break his heart by rejecting his courtship and proposal? Wouldn't she still hurt him badly and thus be forced never to see him again?

"You should be at the wedding, Antoinette." Her Angel's voice interrupted Christine's musings. "You should be with Christine on her special day."

Christine cringed. He thought she was getting married today, and even in his own distress and illness he thought of her and what would be best for her. She pressed her ear to the door in order not to miss Mme. Giry's reply.

Mme. Giry seemed to hesitate before replying, apparently deciding on whether or not to tell Erik about the rescheduled wedding, then Christine heard her mutter, "I cannot leave you in your current condition, not after what you tried to do last night."

Christine wondered if Erik would catch up on the slight uneasiness in Mme. Giry's voice and on the fact that she evaded the topic of Christine's wedding. But apparently he was too lost in his own morose thoughts to notice. "To think that he will make her his tonight," Erik whispered dejectedly, "that she will allow him what I would never have dared ask of her..."

Christine blushed as she realized that Erik was talking about what happened between married couples in their marriage bed, and remembered that he had told her that because of his face no woman had ever wanted to do _that_ with him.

"I know that my looks, or rather lack thereof makes me disgusting and undesirable to women," Erik rasped now. "And that I have no right to ask anything of that sort of a woman." His voice took on a dreamy quality as he continued, "her kisses were already more than I had ever expected to experience in that regard..."

Christine froze. The kisses! That fatal night she had kissed her Angel, not once, but twice. She had done it to prove to him that she was willing to stay with him as his wife, in exchange for Raoul's life and freedom. Those certainly had been kisses of love – but love for Raoul...

So much had happened that night, and her nerves had been frayed, that those kisses were only a very blurred memory to her. She could not quite remember anymore what it had been like to kiss her Angel and she began to wonder. Had those kisses been just as sweet and wonderful as the ones she used to share with Raoul? Had Erik reacted to her kisses or been too surprised at her action to do anything? She vaguely remembered a strange feeling, as if she had somehow come alive, but surely that had been unrelated to those kisses? That had been the relief that Raoul – her dear, sweet Raoul – would now be safe and could leave unharmed.

Christine frowned. Why was she now thinking about what it felt like to kiss Erik? Surely, she had no wish to ever kiss him again, since she was in love with Raoul and kissing anybody but him would be a betrayal.

"Erik, please," Christine heard Mme. Giry talk to her Angel. "Stop being so negative. I know you love Christine deeply, but it is not her fault that she does not return your feelings. She cannot force her heart to love you any more than you can force yours not to love her. And if you truly care for her, shouldn't you be happy for her, that she can now marry the man she is in love with, has been in love with since they were children?"

Christine sighed and tried to imagine how she would have felt if Raoul had not fallen as deeply in love with her as she with him when they had met again at the Opéra Populaire after all these years. "I would still have had my Angel," she realized. "I would not have been alone. Whereas he..." Erik still had Mme. Giry, who obviously loved him like a brother, but still. Somehow the two situations seemed different.

"I guess so." Erik sounded utterly broken and defeated. "I know she is happy,"he whispered. "And that is what I wanted, for her to be happy. But I also wanted to be the one that makes her happy. I thought she was the one that would be able to look beyond that poor excuse of a face, the one that could learn to see the man behind the monster, I hoped, she of all people would understand and accept me..."

Christine was wiping away silent tears. She wanted nothing more than to go into that room and hug her Angel, crawl onto that bed to be as close to him as possible and hold him, while telling him that she did indeed accept him and understand him, that he was her best friend and that she would always love him like a friend, mentor...

Confused by her sudden desire to hold and touch her Angel, Christine forced herself to leave the attic. She had to leave now, for in her current agitated state of mind she was not sure how much longer she could control those urges to go to him, talk to him, and hold him. "It would not be right," she told herself. "It would be wrong to give him hope, it would be wrong to deny him his rest, and it would also be wrong, since in a way it would be a betrayal of Raoul."

Xxxx

Meg immediately noticed that her friend was fighting hard to keep her emotions under control, when Christine joined her a bit later in the parlor. "So, could you convince yourself now that Erik is fine?" Meg softly asked.

Christine nodded, then sighed. "I heard him talk with your mother. He thinks I am marrying Raoul today, and he..." She blushed deeply. "It pains him to think that Raoul and I, that tonight..." She looked down, embarrassed by the topic.

Meg shrugged. "I guess it is not necessary to tell him that you delayed the wedding," she then uttered. "Since you will marry Raoul anyway, it won't make much of a difference, when that will be."

Christine nodded again, unconvinced. "You are probably right,"she mumbled. "He also thinks that because of his face nobody cares for him, but I do, he is my friend, and your mother, she cares for him, too, and there is so much about him I don't know. Your mother said something to him about having helped him escape from gypsies... I never asked him about himself, his past, his family, anything. I have not been a good friend to him."

"You were a child," Meg tried to comfort her friend. "You did not know better. And then, you thought he was an angel. Who in their right mind would ask an angel about their family? It's his own fault that you believed that. If he had been honest with you right from the start, you might have asked him more about his own circumstances."

"Oh Meg, he loves me so much," Christine blurted out. "He said all he wanted was for me to be happy, and that he had hoped, I of all people would be able to understand him and to accept him, to see the person behind the ugly face..."

Meg smiled. "You do that, though, do you not? You know that he is not a monster, just because he is deformed, and you do care for him despite his disfigurement, right?"

Christine nodded. "Yes," she admitted. "Now I do. It is just, Buquet..." She swallowed. "I guess I was under shock when that happened. Afraid. Disappointed that my Angel would do such things. I never even asked for his side of the story. I mean, there surely was a reason why he did that? I had known him for about ten years and apart from some pranks he had never harmed anybody. So why would he suddenly start killing people?" She shuddered. "I was so scared and – angry - at him. I even thought he would kill again and again."

"I see," Meg tried to be understanding. "But now these things don't bother you anymore?" she asked after a pause.

"I don't know!" Christine confessed. "Of course it does bother me that he killed Buquet. And Piangi. But I think with Piangi... he was not himself that night. He surely knew about Raoul's plan. He must have felt threatened and betrayed. He did not see clear. That was not really him, who killed Piangi, that was all of us who drove him into madness by judging him by his appearance. As for Buquet, I don't know. I just think he must have had a reason. I cannot imagine him killing somebody just like that, to force the managers to pay him his salary or follow his orders. That's not like him."

"You are not afraid of him anymore, then?" Meg probed Christine further.

Christine shook her head. "No," she confessed. "I know that despite all the horrible things he has done, he is decent. No heartless, bloodthirsty criminal would have comforted me when I was crying in the chapel, imploring my dead father to send me the Angel of Music as promised. And no brutal murderer would have let me and Raoul go..."

"So why are you upset, then?" Meg asked. "You have accepted him, you consider him your friend, you have even kind of forgiven him for his crimes. Surely you should be content that you can still have fond memories of your time with him, your music lessons and all that."

"Because he doesn't know," Christine wailed. "He has no idea that I do not loathe him. He saw me be a willing part of Raoul's plan to capture him, he felt me rip off his mask in front of the entire audience, and then, in his lair..." She shuddered at the memory. "I do not recall everything I said to him that night," she admitted, "but I am sure it was some pretty mean stuff, like that his soul was distorted, that he was a false friend, and I accused him of planning to..." She blushed again. "To force … "

Meg's eyes widened. "What made you think he might rape you?" she asked curiously.

"The wedding dress," Christine mumbled. "He forced me to put on a wedding dress."

"He watched you while you were changing?" Meg was all ears now. Even though, just like Christine, she had no experience whatsoever with sex, she was always curious to hear about anything vaguely connected to it. A man ogling a half-naked woman certainly was interesting.

Christine resolutely shook her head. "Of course not," she informed her friend. "He is a gentleman. I changed in a different room. It was just the dress... That he wanted me to marry him. I guess I therefore thought he would want to... you know... but of course if he had wanted that, he would not have allowed me to change where he could not watch me. It was a stupid thing to say, and it hurt him."

"So you didn't really mean what you said to him then?" Meg inquired again.

"Maybe then, I did," Christine sounded tired. "But think about the tension of that night. I probably was not in my right mind either. And I have had a lot of time to think things over since then. No, I do not mean those things I said anymore, and I wish I could take those hurtful words back. I wish I could talk to him and make him understand that despite everything I want to remain his friend. But," she looked down, dejectedly, "your mother has made me think. Maybe I am selfish. Maybe seeing me again would be even more hurtful for him, and the last thing I want right now, is hurting him even more."

Meg watched Christine. Something did not ring true about what her friend had told her. Christine was getting way too worked up about the fact that the Phantom – Erik, she reminded herself, his name was Erik – might think she did not care about him, and she seemed way too desperate to see him again. That did not look like simple friendship to her. What if Christine's feelings for the man were of a deeper nature? What if he meant more to her foster sister than she seemed to admit even to herself? "If I am right, then she should not marry the Vicomte," Meg thought. "That would probably make all three of them unhappy." And she decided to keep her eyes and ears open in order to find out if her suspicion was correct, and if so... "If so, I must help her. If she does indeed love the Phantom, then they should be together," Meg thought.


	6. Meeting?

Okay, here I am again with my next chapter. Let's see what Meg might come up with to help our two wanna-be lovebirds! But first, thank you to everybody for reading, for all your lovely reviews, for adding this story to your favorites and for putting it on alert. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Just to make sure you understand, I do not own anything or anybody even remotely connected with POTO. Sigh! That's life!

Chapter 6 - Meeting?

Meg thought about it for a while, then beamed. "Maman will go shopping shortly," she whispered to Christine. "She said that _he_ will probably still have an upset stomach and won't be able to eat much, so she'll make chicken broth for him. Therefore she needs to get a small chicken she can cook. Since she does not trust him not to repeat what he did last night, I will have to sit with him in her absence and make sure he does not try anything of that sort again. Maybe then I can talk to him, give him a few hints about your feelings, maybe find out if seeing you again would depress him further or not..."

Meg was not entirely enthusiastic about her plan. She was a bit wary about the man in the attic. She had avoided contact with her mother's guest as much as possible and had barely exchanged a few words with him since he had come to their home that fatal night and her mother had agreed to grant him asylum and allow him to live with them for the time being. She knew, though, that her mother trusted him and considered him a good friend, almost like a younger brother, and Christine, well, her friend obviously did not fear him either, on the contrary. "Maybe he really is not as bad as I once thought," Meg pondered, "and if I am right about Christine's feelings for him, then I will have to get used to being around him, for if she indeed does love him, as I suspect, then they should be together, probably not here in Paris, but somewhere, and I have a feeling as if Maman and I would go with them in that case, or at least visit them frequently..."

"Oh Meg, would you really do that for me?" Christine's enthusiastic reaction to her suggestion only confirmed Meg's suspicion that the deformed, recovering man up there in their guest room meant the world to her friend.

Meg nodded bravely. "Yes," she promised, "I will try and sound him out a bit, then you can base your decision on whether or not to see him again on that. If you want, you can eavesdrop. I don't think there is any harm in doing that. He won't even know that you are there, and therefore he can't get unduly agitated and thus harm his currently fragile health."

Christine hugged her friend. "Thank you," she murmured. "Thank you so much. That is a fantastic idea." She would be able to hear her Angel's voice again, maybe learn more about him and his feelings for her, and, most importantly, Meg would try to make sure he understood that she did care for him!

"Sh," Meg suddenly broke away from Christine's embrace. "Mother is coming. Quiet and calm yourself!"

The two girls had barely sat down again and picked up books, pretending to be reading, when Mme. Giry entered the room. "Meg, would you mind sitting with our patient for a while now?" she addressed her daughter. "I will try to be back as soon as possible, but we do need a few things, especially with Christine here now as well. I had not counted on having to feed another person for the next couple of days..."

Christine smiled. "So I can stay here till Raoul and I finally get married?" she asked timidly.

Mme. Giry shrugged. "Since you know now, there is not much point in driving you away, especially since it would probably make your fiancé wonder. He knows that you are like family to us. It would therefore look suspicious if we did not keep you with us. But please consider returning to the Vicomte as soon as possible and not delaying your wedding too much. I do not think it is a good thing that you and – him – are staying under the same roof."

Christine nodded. "I will think about it," she promised, then she choked, suppressing a laugh, when she caught sight of Meg, who, behind her mother's back, was wildly gesticulating, obviously trying to make her understand that she should follow her upstairs in about 5 minutes.

Mme. Giry, eyed Christine suspiciously, then continued, "should the Vicomte come to pay you a visit while I am gone, you should not receive him. Under the current circumstances, with the cancelled wedding, you need to be extra careful regarding your reputation. You should only see your fiancé in the presence of a chaperone, and Meg certainly is too young for that, not to mention, the fact, that she is otherwise occupied during my absence."

Christine fidgeted nervously. Raoul! She had almost forgotten about him. Raoul was maybe right now facing an angry crowd of relatives and friends, giving them some lame explanation of why there would be no wedding today, and all she had been thinking about was how she could make her Angel understand that she did care about him. She felt ashamed. Somehow it seemed that all she ever did was causing problems for the two men that, next to her dead father, meant most to her in this world.

Christine knew that she would have to make it up to Raoul somehow for having brought him into such an embarrassing situation, having to cancel a wedding at such short notice, without being able to give a new date yet, and she realized that she would soon have to face her fiancé. What could she tell him? When would she be ready to marry him?

Deciding to deal with the current situation first, Christine promised Mme. Giry that she would ask Raoul to come back later, should he want to see her during the Madame's absence, inwardly breathing a sigh of relief that she did not have to see him right away, when she still was so confused about what had happened the previous night and she still had no idea how she could make peace with Erik.

Seeing that Meg was already on her way to the attic and satisfied that the two girls would follow her instructions, Mme. Giry picked up her shopping basket and left the house. Christine waited a few minutes, to make sure she would not come back for whatever reason, then slowly and quietly made her way up to the attic. She immediately noticed that while the door to Erik's bedroom seemed closed, Meg had only leaned it shut. She would therefore be perfectly able to understand whatever her friend and Erik would be talking about.

"Promise that you won't do that again,"she heard Meg say. "You had us worried. Maman does care for you a lot, didn't you know?"

"Yes," Erik replied weakly. "Antoinette does care. But why would she want me to prolong my miserable existence? She should be happy for me if I finally could find peace."

Christine bit her lip not to sob out loudly. He sounded so heartbroken, so hopeless, so utterly alone. Once again she had to fight an impulse to run into that room, to that poor, lonely man inside, to hug him, to hold him close and to tell him, that he was her dearest friend.

"You should have let me die, little Meg," Erik continued. "My life is over anyway, now that she..." He paused, as if overcome by his emotions, then sighed. "Christine..." His voice trailed again, and Christine outside the door, slid to the floor, burying her face in her hands, shaking violently.

How much he loved her! She had broken his heart, humiliated him by exposing his face to the audience of the Opéra Populaire, betrayed his trust and hurt him in a thousand ways, and yet, he still loved her!

Meg seemed to be moved, too, for her voice was a little bit less certain, when she spoke to her patient again. "Christine," Meg mumbled. "Didn't you think of her, Monsieur Erik, when you … last night, I mean, what you did then... did you not think how this would affect her?"

A hollow, unfunny laugh escaped the former Phantom's throat. "Affect her?" he parroted Meg. "How do you think my death would affect her? She would probably be relieved to know that the beast is gone and cannot harm her anymore. I would most likely do her a favor by killing myself."

"Don't say that!" Meg exclaimed, then added softly, "don't even think that. Apparently you do not know her as well as I do. She has not forgotten the past, the time, when you were her Angel of Music. Believe me, she still cherishes those memories. You did mean something to her once, and I don't think she hates you now."

"You were not there," Erik retorted, his voice bitter and full of hurt. "You did not hear what she called me, the things she accused me of." He paused, before adding, "and she probably was right, too, telling me that my soul is more deformed than my face. She probably is thanking her God on her knees now for saving her from me."

Christine shuddered at his words. He obviously thought that she completely despised and hated him. She also had the impression that he was getting more agitated, and she was beginning to fear that this conversation would exhaust him more than was good for him in his current weakened condition.

"No," Meg's voice was barely more than a whisper. "I don't think she feels that way. I think she is worried about you."

"Worried?" Erik seemed startled. "What makes you think she might feel that way?"

"I know that she would be very upset if she knew what you did last night," Meg stated, trying to sooth Erik. "And that she still remembers you as her friend. She... she hopes that you will be fine and one day find happiness," she added.

"You are saying this to comfort me," Erik retorted, unconvinced. "I have seen her fear of me, her disgust of me, I know that she will be only too happy to be rid of me."

Christine was sobbing into her skirts now, trying to muffle the sound that way. She had obviously hurt him even deeper than she had thought. How could he believe she feared him and was disgusted by him? Would she ever have kissed him if she felt that way about him? Surely the fact that she had been able to press her lips to his malformed ones without starting to retch in disgust must tell him something?

"No," Meg replied warmly. "You are wrong about her. She does not fear you. At least not anymore. Don't judge her by what happened that day. Think of how much was going on, how confused and at the end of her nerves she must have been then. Believe me, when I tell you that she did not mean half the things she said to you that night, that she even does not remember that night too clearly. I know for a fact that she wishes she could apologize to you for the way she treated you."

"She told you so?" Erik sounded incredulous.

"Yes," Meg replied simply, then added hesitantly, "would you want to see her again, if only to hear in her own words that she is sorry, and that she asks you to forgive her?"

Christine held her breath. She wished with all her heart that he would say yes, he wanted to see her, if only for a few moments, and even if all she could tell him was that she was sorry. Even if it meant having to face her again, knowing that he could never have her.

"I am not sure," Erik whispered, "and this is a moot question anyway. She is marrying the Vicomte today, and even if she wanted to see me again, he would never allow it. Not that I can blame him. After all that has happened between the two of us, I would not allow my new bride to meet with him either, if our roles were reversed."

"But if there were a way," Meg insisted calmly. "If she could somehow meet with you again, would you want that? Or would it hurt you too much to see her again, knowing that she... that she is not returning your feelings."

"You mean, knowing that she belongs to that... that Vicomte now," Erik spat out, obviously troubled by that thought.

Meg sounded a bit uncertain, as she quietly replied, "yes. Would that hurt you?" She did not seem too comfortable with not telling him the whole truth, namely that Christine was still free and would remain that way for a while longer.

There was a long pause, as Erik seemed to mull this over, then Christine heard his voice again. "I do not know," he whispered, sounding broken and depressed. "I honestly do not know. Would I want to see Christine again, the light of my life, the angel that trusted me and whose trust I betrayed? Oh yes, I would love to see her again, to hear her voice again, to see her smile... But then, she would not smile at me, would she? It would be awkward. We would both remember that night, and it would hurt us. We can never be the friends again that we once were, not after all that has happened. She has seen the worst of me, she knows now what a truly despicable person I am, and I... " He groaned. "I would know that she is the Vicomtesse de Chagny now, that she is a different person, that she has given up all I gave her, her voice, her music..."

Christine cringed. Why did he think marrying Raoul meant she would give up her music and not sing anymore? She knew for certain that noble ladies did love music and sometimes performed for their guests at soirées or afternoon teas. Surely, as Raoul's wife, she would be able to continue to sing?

"So you would not want to see her again?" Meg asked softly.

"Christine," Erik sighed. "My Christine, the Christine I once knew, I would love to see her again. I know that our relationship could never be repaired after the way I treated her, but I would love a chance to explain to her, to try and make her understand. The Vicomtesse de Chagny, on the other hand..." He shuddered at the thought of Christine's and Raoul's naked bodies entwined in passionate lovemaking. "No, I don't think I would want to meet her."

Christine trembled. Why did he not want to see her anymore once she would be Raoul's wife? Why did he think she would be a different person then? What difference did it make if she was married or not? And would he want to see her, if he knew that while she was still planning on marrying Raoul, she had delayed the wedding indefinitely?

She did not have to wait long for an answer. "Tonight he will make her his," Erik mumbled more to himself than to Meg, obviously forgetting that he was not alone and that this was not a suitable topic to discuss in the presence of an unmarried woman. "He will teach her the joys of the flesh, he will breach her barriers, he will take possession of her body, he will see her …. " His voice almost broke, as he added, "naked."

Christine blushed furiously. The thought of being seen naked by anyone was rather uncomfortable to begin with, but to think that her Angel was imagining Raoul ogling her naked body was somehow even more disturbing. And the things he had alluded to... She was not that naïve that she did not understand what Erik had been talking about. It began to dawn on her why he would not consider her to be the same person anymore, after Raoul had done _that_ with her, how it would be awkward for him to know that... that some other man had touched her in such a way.

"Maybe that will not happen tonight," Meg interrupted Christine's thoughts. "I mean," Christine heard her friend blurt out nervously, obviously remembering that they had decided not to tell Erik about the delayed wedding. "Maybe they will wait a bit. You know, after what happened at the Opéra, the night it burned down, their nerves are probably still a bit frayed, I doubt they are ready for that yet... I mean, maybe they are only getting married so quickly so that Christine can live with him, under his protection, without losing her reputation..." Her voice trailed.

"Yeah," Erik mumbled, his voice bitter. "I managed to screw that up, too, didn't I? If it were not for me, Christine could stay here, with you, she could wait till she is ready to marry that boy of hers and give herself to him. But now, she does not have much of a choice, does she? And even if he does not force her to perform her marital duties tonight, he eventually will. It's his right, after all."

"I guess so," Meg obviously was at a loss what to say. "But does it really make such a difference?" she then asked hesitantly. "Is that the only reason why you do not want to see her again? If she were not marrying the Vicomte, just an unmarried girl unable to return your feelings, would you then consider meeting with her and trying to sort out whatever misunderstandings and problems there might be between the two of you?"

"That is a stupid question," Erik grunted, "since she _is_ marrying the Vicomte today."

"Hypothetically," Meg tried again. "If that were the case, how would you feel about meeting her again then?"

Erik sighed. "I still think it would be pointless," he replied. "I have been too thorough in destroying whatever kind of relationship we might have had before. I do not think we could ever go back to the way we were before... before she saw... before that boy re-entered her life, and before I did all those despicable things..."

"Calm down, Monsieur Erik," Meg whispered now. "Maman will be back soon, and I don't think she would be happy to learn that we talked about Christine. We may not have much time left, before my mother returns. Is there anything you want me to tell Christine from you, when I see her next?"

Christine almost screamed out in pain, as she heard Erik's broken words, "only tell her to be happy. That's all I ever wanted for her, to be happy. That's why I let her go, so that she could be happy."


End file.
